


At The Corner of Hasson and Rust

by l0verb0yy



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: Angst, BTW, Cheetor doesnt have a good homelife, Cheetor is a high school track star and rattrap is some man from this dingy ass apartment, Child Neglect, Gang Violence, Gangs, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Rating will go up, Rattrap is gonna be like a brother to Cheetor, THIS WILL BE A (eventually) HAPPY STORY, TITLE MIGHT ALSO CHANGE, Tags will update as story updates, The Apartment Found Family AU nobody asked for, This is set in the 90s, Underage Drinking, WILL BE ILLUSTRATED KINDA, With Shittier Neighbors, but dont worry, deadbeat dads, highschool crushes, honestly this is just me projecting and talking about abandonment oop, i guess, its not super heavy, other characters will appear!, shitty apartments, there will be intermissions, theres gonna be a lot of like social issues, unrequited crushes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-01-08 07:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21232148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/l0verb0yy/pseuds/l0verb0yy
Summary: "He was on the corner of Hasson and Rust street again. Right outside the Axalon Apartments sign, with kudzu snaking up and strangling the dingy thing.  God, the landlord really needed to replace it - an eyesore really.Know what else was a pretty bad eyesore? That friggin’ kid."It is the Fall of 1999.Rattrap is 22 years old, he's gotta job at an autobody shop. He lives in a shitty apartment. He doesn't have a girlfriend. He smokes Marlboro Reds, 100s, thank you very much. Don't give him Newports or he will heap his lid. He don't know nothing, no how, don't ask him anything. He doesn't have an answer.Cheetor is 18 years old, he likes candy (he isn't supposed to eat a lot of it), he is in the track team at his high school. He likes to watch cartoons and he likes 60s teenage beach movies and slasher films that scare him, but he watches them anyway because he likes to be excited, and he almost always has headphones on. He isn't home a lot. He is ready to talk to you about anything and everything. He has a lot of questions.





	1. That Friggin' Kid - Rattrap

**Author's Note:**

> This is... my first fanfiction. In like. Years. I am counting this as VERY first though, embarrassing fanfics when I was like 10 posted on quotev do NOT count. 
> 
> UHHH a lot of this will be told in Rattrap's perspective, so I'm writing in his accent. IF ITS TOO HARD TO READ PLEASE TELL ME. PLEASE FOR THE love OF GOD.  
aNYWAY heres a found family apartment beast wars au literally nobody asked for.

He was on the corner of Hasson and Rust street again. Right outside the Axalon Apartments sign, with kudzu snaking up and strangling the dingy thing. God, the landlord really needed to replace it - an eyesore really.  
Know what _else_ was a pretty bad eyesore? That friggin’ kid.  
He stuck out awful against the dank green and the oppressive, muted colors of the cracked streets with chunks missing entirely out of the asphalt- that looked like a new pothole, gotta watch out for another one, dammit, my tires were already wrecked - and the neglected buildings with cracks tracing the mortar grout of the brickwork were background noise to this part of town. 

This kid practically beamed all the time an’ _God_ was he bright lookin’, dressed in some real eye-burn-orange mos’ of the time. I remember him explainin’ to me that he was trainin’ for track season or whatever, that he was on the track team, that a lot of the lightweight clothes he wore to practice were orange, and that orange was his favorite color, but he also liked yellows and greens and blues, and I don’t know _why_ I remembered what his favorite colors were.

Because it don’t matter no way. 

He didn’t deserve to be in a place like _ this _ , where people strung out on heroin drifted or people coming to sling - peddlin’ out laced toxin an’ all that shit. The Preda have been encroachin’ closer, too . It makes my trigger-finger friggin’ itch… makes me _ nervous _. I don’t want to see another kid just become another member of the Preda is all. We really needed a clean up around here. The fat cats livin’ real cushy don’t care about some fuck-ups livin’ n some squalor. As long as they can’t see us, we don’t exist. 

Can’t take care of a problem that don’t exist, right? 

  
  


* * *

Jeez, didn’t this kid have places to be? This is gettin’ stinkin’ ridiculous. Shoulda never been nice to him, now he’s followin’ me around like a lost pup or whatever. Alls I did was just give him a ride. A ride and like, a piece of gum. It was touching down in the 40s, now, with Fall going and Winter comin’. An’ he was an idiot just runnin’ around on Main in a flimsy muscle shirt and runnin’ shorts with cheetah print sliders underneath ‘em. It wasn’t even actual cheetah print, it was just yellow and the print itself was blue. Christ Almighty, an eyesore. I’m tellin’ yeah, he was a real eyesore. 

An’ I stopped by Freddy’s ‘n got him a burger. 

But, only because his stomach was growling, it was irritatin’, an’ I was gettin’ hungry, too. Been a while since I’ve been down to Freddy’s anyway. Wouldn’t have killed me to spare a couple bucks for him. His face lit up when I had offered. His face, dotted with freckles and even more freckles, split with the most pleased, toothy, grin I ever did see, and he said,

“_ Aw _ yeah! Thanks, you’re a real cool cat.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, who still says “_cool cat _.”

  
  


* * *

I had shrugged it off at the time, just a one-time thing, no big deal. Then the kid kept comin’ around. He made it a point to start running near Hasson and Rust, so that he could stop by and yammer on to me about whatever made him excited that day or what he did today and sometimes what he had learned in school:

“Hey, Ratts,” - he called me _Ratts,_ his little nickname for me. Guess we on a nickname basis now, huh, “...did you know...” Kid, I ain’t know nothing no how, “...that caffeine doesn’t give you energy! It just, like, kinda blocks the parts in your brain that makes you think you’re tired. Or, uh - something like that!” 

“Yeah, real intersestin’,” I muttered and sent him a look that should’ve clued him in to scram, but he just took that as an invitation and he leaned in closer to me from his place off the wall of the tobacco outlet - he had followed me there, was right next to Freddy’s - and flashed me a grin and exclaimed,

“Isn’t it though! I mean, I always thought that, like, it gave you energy. I kinda understand now why I crash so bad now!” 

I huffed and took out my smokes, and packed them against the palm of my hand, - _ one, two, three times_, and took off the wrap. Popped one out, popped it in my mouth, and covered the end with my spare hand as I lit it up. Or attempted to at least. Cheap ass lighter, needa new one. This one was running out of fluid anyhow. On the fourth attempt of striking, the end of the cig lit up and I inhaled, let the gray smoke fill up my lungs, swirl around a little. Then I blew out, watching the smoke dance and lilt through the air in front of me. I looked over to Cheetor, and he just blinked at me and smiled. 

I thought he was gonna be quiet. Boy, am I tired of being wrong. He leaned back against his little spot on the wall, with his freakishly long legs out in front of him and his back leaning against the brick. That’s gotta be uncomfortable for him, wearin’ that flimsy muscle shirt he usually wore when he went runnin’. The brick was cold and it was prol’ly sappin’ his heat. Not to mention the brick at this outlet was particularly rough, old building ‘n all. He flung his equally freakishly long arms over his head to cross ‘em over himself, and looked down at me and just really started in on me with how his day went, and what he was excited about, and what he learned about that day, and I just inhaled, in exasperation, or out of habit, I ain’t know, but didn’t care, and blew out, watching the smoke rock out in front of me again, with Cheetor’s voice cast as background noise.

Look what you did, Rattrap. Look what you did. You were nice once, and now y’er babysitter.

“... but like, my Dad said - OH HECK YEAH!”

The kid frickin’ shouted and I jumped, nearly droppin’ the cigarette out of my mouth, but instead my teeth clenched and squished the butt of the cig. Damn it, I hope I could still smoke it. I inhaled and was a little relieved I could, didn’t wanna waste anythin’. I looked to the left of me to see what the hell that kid’s malfunction was, but he was already haulin’ ass towards an _ ice cream truck, _that already had little kids mobbing it, and here comes this 6-foot-3-spindly-ass-teenager barrelin’ towards it. 

Christ, gonna have to put this kid on a leash now, huh? 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. At 3:30 PM - Rattrap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Cheetor trips on the sidewalk and they smoke together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AUUUGUu I made this chapter longer to make up for my absence. school has been kicking my ass.

‘S October 15th. I met the Kid on October 2nd. He has a routine that he followed strictly:

  * Get up at 5:00 AM. He’s a weird Kid. He told me that he liked to get up so early ‘cuz he liked to run around before he actually had to get up, he liked to think when he ran around early in the morning, when no one would bother him. When he could be alone. With the way that he clung around me, I woulda thunk that he would want more company. 

* * *

I asked him about it, but I s’pose that was the wrong question to ask. Cheetor just looked like he was a balloon and someone took a needle to him, ‘n he had watched them do it. Let them do it. He hiccupped over what he was sayin’ to me. 

“I,” he began, and he furrowed his eyebrows “I, uh, I like the pressure and temperature is all. It’s good for running! Good impact! Yeah! It’s a little harder to run in the cold, it always hurts my chest a little. ” 

“Uh-huh.” Feelin’ real incredulous right now. I know the Kid is serious and all about track, but what teenager gets up at 5 AM just to _ run _? I barely got out of bed at 7:50, ten minutes before the bell rang. He didn’t seem to notice my doubtin’, and went on tellin’ me what he did that day, coupled with hand movements and sound effects: His friend, Nightscream, took all the ketchup packets out of the Commons and had put them in his own gym bag, and Nightscream had ran into the wall with his gym bag out in front of him. Ended up going up the walls and all up this kid’s face and got detention. Moron. 

“The ketchup was like, everywhere! It made this really ick noise like, blergh, or like... more like _ splahkt _ , or like- anyway. He got like, detention ‘n stuff. He got ketchup all over the detention papers, and ketchup all over the receiver of the phone when he had to call home, and ketchup all over the walls. It was just everywhere, Ratts! It got in his nose and he asked me to like, dare him to snort the ketchup so he could swallow it and I was like ‘dude that’s nasty’, and he was like ‘Cheets, I’m gonna do it’ and I was like. ‘Dude, no!’ and then he DID. and like. Threw up everywhere. It was _ nasty. _But, its kinda neat that like, you can drink things with your nose.” 

I nodded along to the story and rolled my eyes, I was still hung up a lil’ bit on the “hyper-active extroverted-attention-leeching-Cheetor wanting alone time. He’s always up in my shit, I kinda figured he’d be up in everyone else’s business, too. I’m not worried or anythin’ like that. I just ain’t the type to go all sentimental. It ain’t me. No way.  
I was jus’... curious is all. He seemed to thrive off of attention, or somethin’. He acted like that if he was not in immediate range of within someone, buggin’ the hell outta ‘em, he would probably keel over and die. He probably wakes up at 5 AM every day to just say,

“Oh boy! Gee Golly! It’s time bother the living hell out of poor ol’ Rattrap and run around on my freakish legs and get around real speedy like and bother Rattrap and get up to dumb shit and bother Rattrap some more!”

Eh, its not that bad. He would get a bit more peppy - annoying - whenever he saw me, with widened eyes and that impossibly wide, toothy grin that he would flash at me, and ask me how my day was. The Kid _ sounded _ like he talked in exclamation points, exclusively. He tended to be boundin’ around, or rocking back and forth on his feet, swinging his arms in tandem, and when he stopped to talk to me he was still movin’. Joggin’ in place, if ya could call it that. His “joggin’ in place” was over-enthusiastic rampin’ up his knees to his chest, with hard _ thumps _of his shoes against the concrete whenever he brought his feet back down. And he’d do it over and over again, looked tirin’ as all hell, but he would just do it over and over again, to a rhythm I could not hear. He was always asking questions and tellin’ me things.

All the while, he’d look down at me, _look to me_, eyes dazzled and with a shit-eating grin, like he was about to tell me the best damn things he knew that I didn’t. Because he knows I don’t know. Like he was absolutely about to knock my fucking socks off and show up God, personally. Like he was lookin’ to impress me, by telling me what he was excited for, how his day was, what he did that day, what he learned that day. Which, by the way, I learned yesterday from the Kid that the horn on a... narwhal? That’s it. I think. The horn on a narwhal is actually a tooth? Cheetor told me that yesterday. Wack. That’s what he said it was. He said it was wack. Kinda is. Kinda fucked up, now that I think about it. Imagine bein’ a fish in the ocean just mindin’ your damn business and this one ton bastard just comes zippin’ at you at mach speed and just shankin’ your ass. 

Its over. Cold-blooded.

God must’ve decided “Yes, today is the day. I will make the saddest creature on Earth. Next to Rattrap. Who is an epic fucking loser, by the way,” and then He made the narwhal. 

Otherwise, it really _ ain’t _that impressive how much Cheetor remembers, or how fast he is or the honors he’s received. Big whoop, kid goes to college because he runs fast. 

Go to college to get some knowledge, come to Rattrap to get real stupid. 

Anyway, the talkin’ to me every day, doin’ his little jogs, purposefully going my way to talk to me? It was friggin’ gratin’, I’m tellin’ ya. How dare this kid have the audacity to be buddy-buddy to some stranger that gave him a car ride, which he _ shouldn’t _ have accepted by the way, I just gave him a ride because I knew if I didn’t the Kid probably would’ve been found in a ditch somewhere. I told him not to be kind to strangers the way he is, that shit will get ya hurt. And I told him so, over and over again. And he just grinned that shit-eating grin, and said,

“Well, Ratts, how else am I ‘sposed to make friends?” 

Real friggin’ gratin’, _ indeed. _

* * *

  * He’d have to be at school by 8 AM, but he showed up usually at 7:30. 

He told me that between 5 and 6 AM, he would generally run for an hour or so, and then from 6 to 7, he would cool down and go down to Nightscream’s to goof off for a bit. 

* * *

“He actually doesn’t sleep all that well,” Cheetor said, his voice strained in concentration. He was balancing on the curb, with his arms stuck out at his side to help him balance, with his balance shaky and almost tipping ever so often. I could tell by the hiccups and wobblin’ in his voice as he spoke, “he has always kinda just functioned better at night than during the day? It’s been like that since we were kids.” 

Cheetor continued on down the curb for a while in silence, and I trailed a little in front of him. I didn’t want to be smacked by his arms every time he flapped in a struggle to get back his balance before he fell. He continued on, 

“I guess some people just work better at night. I don’t know why. I’m not one of them. I gotta go to bed early and-”  
“Oh, now I’ve seen it all. Cheetor don’t know somethin’ for once.” I don’t know why I said that. Wasn’t particularly nice, and the Kid didn’t do anything ‘cept aggravate me. 

“Well,” Cheetor, started, softly. It was hard to tell if he was hurt by the comment or not, I couldn’t see his face, but he sounded alright. So I didn’t look back. Wouldn’t have been my fault anyway. He’s a big boy, he can handle it. “I could always ask Mr. Taiga tomorr-_ o-w.” _ Cheetor’s voice wobbled at the end and then I heard a resounding _ smack _ behind me, and a strings of “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch,” flew from Cheetor’s mouth. I looked behind and down, and Cheetor was holding his knee close to him, bent over it and picking out some gravel that had embedded in his skin when his knee hit the pavement. His knee was skinned, and rivulets of blood starting to form. The blood bubbled up and tensed, then they started their trail down the length of his leg. 

“Really, Legs,” Lookit. A _ creative _ nickname for him. “Y’er eighteen, would’a expected ya to have better balance than that right there.” I paused where I stood and I got a closer look at his face. There was a wetness glossing over his eyes, and he was going to town on his bottom lip with his teeth. God, damn it. 

“Don’t be such a baby. C’mon. Pick yerself up, let’s go back to my apartment. Get that patched up.” His head jerked up at me and I could see a little of the tears fly out of his eyes. Then he smiled, sniffed, and nodded, with that frickin’ toothy grin of his stretching over his face. _ Really _. He picked himself up off the ground with his freckled face scrunching up in a wince, and I could tell that he clenched his jaw. He hissed when he finally stood up straight. I nodded at him, and he turned and went back to the way we came, trailing along Rust street. He hobbled on his leg a little bit. I sped up a little to get closer to him. Just in case. Don’t wanna deal with too much of a mess. We walked back in silence. 

* * *

When we got to the apartment, I nearly cursed aloud. Yeah, kinda forgot my apartment was on the upper floor. I glanced to Cheetor and he looked up the stairs and bit his lip. He looked down at me and gave me a sheepish smile. 

“Hey, uh, Ratts? Can ya be a cool cat, and uh,-”

I groaned in frustration. “Kid, I’m already patchin’ up ya leg. Want me to make ya dinner, too? Tuck ya int’a bed, tell you a story,” I started towards him anyway, despite my bitchin’, “give you a goodnight kiss on the forehead?” I got up to the side of him. We could both fit comfortably on the stairwell, he was so slender. I wrapped my arm around his waist and he put his hand on the rail, and we started on upwards to the door. We made it, without Cheetor having to pause, and I unlocked the door and, without looking back, went through and kicked my shoes off. I made a beeline towards the bathroom to rustle through the cabinets, hopin’ I’d have everything to at least put a bandage over his knee. Didn’t want Golden Boy’s parents over there comin’ to me and bitchin’ about why he was bruised ‘n hurt. I don’t know a lot about Cheetor’s parents, but I assume with him being a track star, and all, he’s gotta have some leverage at home, or at the ver least, someone pampering him. Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve heard Cheetor actually talk about his parents that much. Granted, he probably already yapped about his parents but I was likely zoning out whenever he was talking about his home life. I think the most I recall - where is that vaseline - the most I recall him sayin’ that he lived in Bold Springs, so some cushy suburban neighborhood. 

Honestly, I don’t know why he comes around here if he lives in a place like that. Why he would ever want to hang around me, I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for that. 

I got all that I needed out of the medicine cabinet and sink cabinets: some gauze and medical tape, little bit of vaseline, a rag that _ looked _ clean.

“‘Ey, Legs, get in here!” I yelled at the direction of the door. “An’ make sure ya’ take ya shoes off. Don’t need no dirt trackin’!” I heard a _ thump _ and a hurried “Yeah! Yeah! I’m comin’ Ratts lemme just-” and he appeared in the doorway as he was takin’ off his bag. 

I patted the edge of the bathtub and he hobbled over to the edge and sat. I sat close to him, on the toilet lid, and started to open up the gauze and prepare the tape. I handed him the rag.

“Here, Stretch,” really handin’ out the nicknames tonight, “take ‘dis, and put ya knee under da faucet. Make sure ya angle y’er leg so it rinses out the dirt n’ stuff.” He nodded, and took the rag. He peeled off his sock that was on the injured leg and leaned over to turn on the faucet while I went to the sink and washed my hands, as he turned on tub. 

Didn’t want the kid gettin’ any infections or whatever, not that my hands are filthy. I just didn’t want him to say anythin’ about it. Not that I think he would’a. He seemed pretty busy with his knee over there. I looked over at him, and he was diligently cleanin’ his leg. I couldn’t see his face, but with the way he was hunched over, and the movement of his shoulders, I could tell. He was easy to read. 

Cheetor was lithe. When he moved, he moved well, and was usually more coordinated, as far as I could tell. He moved with purpose, whether to burn up excess energy or to train. When he walked, his walking was meticulous, heel-toe-heel-toe. He didn’t drag his feet, the would never stray sideways. His feet were straight when he walked, or ran. His shoulders were defined, and his shoulder blades were sharp. He looked like a stinkin’ cat when he moved, especially when he rolled his shoulders. I could see his bones and muscle ripple and shift under his skin, where it would contort and conform with his movements. He held his head up high, and his arms would often cross behind his head, his shoulder blades would press together, he’d stretch and his body would tremble. He would breathe a sigh of relief if he heard anything pop. His hands would be shoved in his pockets, if he had any. Most often, they’d fiddle with the Walkman-EX20 he had on him. He showed me it a thousand times over, said it was one of his favorite things he had. He asked me if I wanted to borrow some of his tapes, and before I could answer he thrusted The Police’s _ Zenyatta Mondatta _ in my hand. 

“I also got some Chemical Brothers, if ya like that? OH, uh, I think I have Dolly Parton somewhere too, Queen, and uh, I really like this band called Weezer. Nightscream likes Nirvana, I-I don’t actually know what you listen to. So, yeah I -”  
“I like The Police just fine, Kid. Sting’s alright.” 

He always had these orange headphones on, plugged into the WM, and he’d apparently run for hours at a time. He said that he’d think about the future, a lot. But mainly, he daydreamed. He would daydream for hours upon hours. He never told me what about. 

“Got it clean, Kid?” I asked him. He looked behind his shoulder and nodded his head. 

“Yeah, I think I got it clean enough.” I walked over and sat back on the toilet seat again.  
“Lemme see.” He turned the faucet off and I glanced in the bathtub. That was a little bit more blood than I was expectin’ from a knee scrape. There was some slashes of pink tinted water running down into the drain, and disappeared entirely with a choked gurgle. I looked down at Cheetor’s knee. It looked better now that it was clean. I took some of the Vaseline and rubbed it on the gauze and put it to the scrape. Cheetor hissed and his leg twitched, but he hadn’t flinched back. I had torn bits of the tape, and applied pressure so I could get it pinned down correctly. I looked at Cheetor’s face and he was watching me work, lookin’ down at my hands through his lashes. He was awful silent. 

“What about my hands? I got some smaller bandaids in my bag, should I wash them too?” I looked to his hands, and sure enough, they were scraped at the palms. 

“Yeah, wash ‘em.” He got up and walked over to the sink. His leg was still moving a bit stiff, but he looked a bit brighter. 

“Want somethin’ to eat?” God. Fucking - Dammit, why did I say that? That’s just gonna make him stick around more. 

“Oh! Uh, yeah that’d be cool. What ya got, Ratts?” I was heading into the kitchen as he was askin’ the question. I heard him ruffle around his bag and open up a band-aid. 

“Ehhhh, not much. Let’s see.” I trailed off as I opened up the counters. Instantly, my eyes wandered over to some condensed chicken noodle soup. That’ll do. 

“What I fix, ya eatin’, or not. Got it?” I said over my shoulder. 

“Got it.” 

“Good.”

* * *

  * After Cheetor got out of school, he’d be at the corner of Hasson and Rust, by the Axalon Apartments sign, at 3:30 PM, every day, without fail. 

* * *

I’ve known him since October 2nd. I still don’t know the reason why he came to see me every day. He’s implied that it is for friendship, but he seems to do fine in that department when he tells me the number of parties he gets invited to, or what Nightscream did that day. He is a little social butterfly. I always got the idea that he thrived off of attention. He doesn’t ever go to the parties, he told me. 

“Why not? Thought ya liked makin’ friends?” Cheetor paused in eating his soup. The spoon clinked in his bowl a little as he faltered. 

“I - I don’t know, man. I mean, I’ve always kinda wanted to go, you know? But I got that scholarship thing going on for me, and- and its kinda hard for me to stay up late. I don’t wanna fall asleep at a party and have like, stuff written all over my face, or like... other things. And like, have people take pictures of that. I’d be way embarrassed. It’d be all kinds of s’ghetti.” _ Spaghetti? _

“The hell spaghetti mean?” 

“Oh, you know.” _ I don’t _. “Like. An awkward situation. I wouldn’t want a picture like that get around to my coach and having him blow static at me. It’d be a real giga-bummer, Ratts.”

“S’pose it would be. Ya might be missin’ out though.” That might’ve not been the right thing to say, but it’s too late. I put it out there. Cheetor seemed to slump a little bit more in his sit, his chin pressed to his chest. Doesn’t like to be left out, it seems. Left alone? I don’t know. Didn’t care to ask. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” I looked to his hands that were fiddling with his spoon, they were covered in _ Spongebob Squarepants _ bandages. 

“Ain’t ya like, eighteen?” He stopped slurping on his soup and looked up at me. With food in his mouth, he let out a,

“Yeh. Ah’m eighttheen.” 

“Doubt it, chump.” He swallowed his food and looked as offended as he possibly could with broth running down his chin, and a noodle sticking out the corner of his mouth.  
“What’s that s’posed to mean!?” The noodle flew across the table, and in his excitement he got up before he forgot about his knee, and his freakishly long legs, and hit the table. He gave a shout and I didn’t answer him, I just barked out a laugh that made my chest shake and stomach curl. 

“Wh - _ What are _ you laughin’ for, man? C’mon, dude, what- tell me! ‘S not that funny, Ratts!” I just shook my head, still chuckling. He was holding his knee. I got up and offered my hand towards his bowl. A silent question: “Are you done?”

He just puffed out air, and took the bowl to his lips and drank the rest of the broth, and handed it to me with a slight shove.  
“Aw, is da kitten _maaaad_?” I mocked him in a condescendin’ way, and I reached out to pinch his cheeks. 

“Eat my shorts.” I snorted and went into the kitchen to place the bowls in the sink after running some water over them. 

“When ya gotta be out kid? Don’t want ya parents gettin’ made a’ me, thinkin’ that I’m some creep, or whatever.”  
“My dad doesn’t really care how long I’m out.” Cheetor answered nonchalantly, quickly. 

“Yeah?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “‘N what if he comes bustin’ down my apartment door, lookin’ for ya, Stretch?” 

“He won’t, I promise! I’ve been out all night before and didn’t even come home, and he didn’t say anything!” Cheetor was pleadin’. Sounded like he was going to ask me if he could stay. I was gettin’ ready to shut that shit down real quick. 

“C’mon, Kid. Let’s go out to the smoke shop.” He looked a little perturbed about the subject change, I guess he wanted to hang out way longer than I was willin’.  
“I’ll buy ya somethin’.”  
He got up out of his chair with a grumble and went to the bathroom to collect his bag. I huffed and shook my head. 

* * *

“Where were ya all night?” 

“Hmf?” Cheetor hummed in question through his mouthful of Snickers. “Oh, at Nightscreeam’s. We went to Walmart at like. 3 AM and played around with the balls and got some snacks. Nightscream finally got around to playing _ Silent Hill _ and he didn’t want to do it alone because he’s a scaredy-cat,” he paused. “But, to be fair, it is a pretty scary game. I don’t know though, I think I liked _ Resident Evil _ better.” 

I leaned back against the brick wall, listenin’ to him. I lit up my cigarette. Tried to. The lighter wouldn’t light, as usual. 

“Oh! Here ya go.” I paused and looked at Cheetor. In his outstretched hand was a box of matches. “I was uh-”  
“What ya got a box of matches for, Stretch? Lookin’ to smoke?” I joked. But, by the sheepish look on his face - Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. 

“_ Kid. _ Thought you were a track star? Serious about competin’?” 

“I am! I promise I am. I just. I wanted to try it at least once. You know? I’m - I’m tired of missin’ out on things. And, like, you know.” No, I don’t know. But I huffed and pulled out a smoke from my pack. Handed it to him, and his eyebrows raised to his forehead.  
“Yer eighteen, right? No big deal. Light me up.” 

He popped the cigarette in his mouth, and his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Kid, what are ya waitin-” He bent down towards me and fumbled with the matchbox, it shook in his hands. He got it on the second strike and leaned in closer so that the tips of our cigarettes were touchin’. He put the match up to the ends, and I exhaled and smoke blew in his face.

They were lit. 

He jerked back and inhaled, and immediately started to cough. I snorted. 

“Take the smoke in ya mouth kid. Hold it a lil. Do ya wanna inhale or not?” 

He shook his head. 

“Okay. Hold it in ya mouth. Close ya mouth, then exhale slowly through ya nose.” 

He did what I told him to do, with fumbling fingers. His shoulders shook a little bit, but he didn’t choke. The smoke came out of his nose and flittered out in front of him. I leaned back against the wall, and so did he. He bent down, and took his Sprite in his hand, the bottle of trembling, and I watched the bubbles crawl up the bottle and burst at the top. I watched him knock back his head and take a couple of gulps, and his Adam’s apple bobbed with the motion. He passed the bottle to me, and I took a swig. 

And we smoked. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smoking doesn't make you *cool*, Cheetor.


	3. Hell Yes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV SWITCH TIME. It's Cheetor's time to shine. The PV in this story is gonna... switch around a lot I am so sorry. Cheetor gets invited to a party, and there is some feelings about his bestest bro.

5 A.M — I always tried to wake up at 5 A.M, 4 A.M was odd, too early and too late, at the same time, and sometimes he was still up at 4, sometimes. 6 A.M... was a dicey time to get up. 

But, it is okay! Cuz’ I got up at 5 as usual. And I know that today is going to be the most perfect day I’ve ever seen, just as every day before today has been the most perfect day I’ve ever seen. 

I shifted my eyes towards the digital clock, red, blocky numbers reading 5:04. I huffed and looked up towards the ceiling, where I could see the curves of the light and the shadows of the popcorned surface. Orange light flitted in through the gaps of my blinds, dancing around the contours of my room, and lines streaking across my bed, over my torso. I shivered a little bit. I should probably start wearing a shirt to bed, now that it’s getting colder. Reminder for tomorrow. 

I huffed. Man. The need to fall back to sleep was  _ strong _ . I was so fricking warm, the blankets piled on top of me had the right amount of pressure and my bed has never felt softer. My eyelids felt like lead. It’d be so easy to just... sink into the sheets and go back to bed. I closed my eyes. The house was quiet. Too quiet. My eyes flew open. I wouldn’t have much time to get ready and get out of the house without making contact with Dad if I laid in bed for too long. I felt a frustrated whine rise up and tumble out my throat. Did I wanna talk to him at all, or did I wanna get some more sleep?

Flinging the covers off, I sat up and scratched my chest. The bed squeaked with the motions in a vague protest. I slinked off the bed, my tippy toes touching the hardwood floors. A shiver wracked through my body and my toes instinctively curled back.  _ Gosh, _ that’s cold. I should probably find a rug or something to put down in my room. I stumbled, bleary-eyed around the room. I kinda felt stupid, knowing that I can’t even see that well, but I was still trying to find everything. After tripping over some clothes and what felt like my bag, I made it to the light switch and I fumbled with it before flicking it on. 

The room brightened and I could almost feel my eyes shrink back inside my skull. Blinking my eyes, I set out to get ready. Ready, Freddy. I wasn’t the most enthusiastic about it — who would be? I knew the clothes were gonna be stricken with the chill. My hands slid over my gym shorts and I put them on and shivered. The shorts absorbed the cold super well, it felt like my crotch was enveloped in an iceberg. Dude, I am so going to die _ .  _ After huffing in a few deep breaths, trying to calm down - it was  _ cold  _ and my bed was so  _ warm _ \- I looked for a relatively clean pair of jeans from my laundry basket that I could put over top the shorts. I didn’t normally put jeans over my shorts, but Rattrap always got in a tizzy whenever I didn’t wear pants - “in dis friggin’ weather? Hell is  _ wrong  _ wit’ ya? Put on some pants, Kid, fuck’s sake.” I caught myself smiling a little bit. 

Pair of jeans, located. I gave them a small sniff and did a once-over for any weird stains. Oop, that looked like a little bit of pizza sauce. I flaked it off. Aw, heck yeah. Clean pair of jeans! I slide my leg through one pant leg as I hop over to my dresser for a shirt. I put my other leg in and gave a final jump and jeans were  _ on.  _ I felt my shorts bunch up a little, so I stuck a hand down to fix them while I opened the drawer to pilfer through the bunch of unfolded shirts. A little guilt nagged at the back of my mind. I really should be more organized than this. 

“I will clean my room later!” I say for the gazillionth time. And probably not clean it, for the gazillionth time. It’s always been hard for me to organize stuff. I’ve never known how to go about it, and I kinda, uh, have a tendency to “hoard.” It's not  _ really  _ hoarding, I just have a lot of good memories, and I like to keep stuff posted around my room! That’s all. I try to keep the stuffed cheetah - his name is Mr. Spots.)- out of sight. I remember Nightscream finding out that I  _ still  _ had a stuffed toy and I didn’t stop hearing about it for  _ weeks _ after.  _ In front of the others, too. _

I care about Mr. Spots a lot. He has a little bow-tie; I remember my Mom getting a little frustrated with me because I would always untie the silky, blue bow off his neck. She’d huff, fondly, I like to think, and pinch my ears, and show me how to tie the bow over and over again. Sometimes, at night, I like to take him out and throw him up in the air, catch him, and stuff my face in his stomach. Sometimes, I think I can still smell her, fleeting. My Mom. She smelled like... this perfume she always wore, and she smelled clean, not quite sterile, she smelled a bit too warm for _ sterile _ . Rather she smelled like fresh laundry out of the dryer. I throw Mr. Spots in the washing machine sometimes, and dryer, so I can try to replicate her smell a bit better, but I don’t think I will ever know what she smells like again, unless if I find out what perfume she liked. 

Speaking of nice smells, time to douse me in Old Spice. I held the can a couple of inches away from my bare chest, and sprayed - 

“COLD!” I yelped out; my voice cracked. I’ve never been happier that no one was around. “Cold, cold, cold, cold -” The mantra flew out of my mouth in quick succession. I had forgotten how cold it was outside, and how cold my room was. Naturally, the can and its contents would be cold, too. I felt like such a doofus, man, I wish I would think these things through better. I felt my muscles twitch rapidly, and I snatched up my shirt and slid it over my head, followed by my hoodie. I picked up my gym bag and headed out my door, flicking off the lights. I glanced at the clock. 5:12, it read, with red dousing the outline of the nightstand. Okay, Cheetor, good time. I tiptoed down the stairs, to the kitchen, patting my hoodie. Shoot. I went back up halfway, crawling up the stairs on all fours. I couldn’t resist, man. The beast instinct -

I creaked open my door and flicked the lights on, a quick glance over my room and I saw my Walkman. I snatched it up, untangling the headphones as I flicked off the lights  _ again _ , and headed down towards the kitchen. I kept close to the walls - I didn’t want the stairs to creak. I yawned and tasted my breath. Oh, grody. I sighed and went back up the stairs  _ again.  _ Time to brush my teeth. 

I stared at myself in the mirror, after brushing. How do you do, Baby Blue? Blue eyes stared back. I frowned. So did he. Then I grinned, and so did he. Looked like someone just flicked a paintbrush in my face. I  _ hated  _ my freckles. I always thought they made me look younger than I actually was. Nightscream would almost always draw on my face whnever I fell asleep at his house. More often then not, I would wake up with crude drawings on my face. Not  _ bad  _ drawings. But crude. I also thought the freckles made me a little unattractive.

Mom said otherwise, always calling me handsome. She always told me that the freckles were individual kisses from angels, and then she’d lean down, attack my face with kisses while holding me close, seemingly trying to fulfill the impossible and kiss every single freckle. I remember shrieking in delight, trying to pull away, while she only held me closer. I blinked. Blonde eyelashes blinked back. Time to go, Cheets. 

This time, I opted to slide down the railing of the stairs, the cool wood pressing to my face. I gave in to some childish instinct, and offered a whispered “Wheeeeeeee-” on the way down. I didn’t want to wake anyone up. My butt hit the newel. This is my stop, time to get off.

I swung my legs over the banister and looked around. It was still too early for sunlight to bust through the blinds. As a pale substitution, the orange street lights struck the floors and bounced off whatever it could hit. I could see some dust particles flit through the air, strangled by the light. The house was quiet, though I could hear snores clearer now. I felt my face tug down at the corners and tried to fix it as soon as I felt it. You use more muscles frowning than smiling. Frowning all the time makes you tired. ‘S what Mom— it’s what I was always told. 

The darkness made the house seem fuzzy and unclear, a distant dream, with little lint bunnies looking up at me from under the couch and silhouettes of false men peeking around the corners to stare at me, and when I turned to stare back, they were just shadows, and nothing more. Whispers of floorboards beneath my feet, neither kind nor unkind, and vague outlines of furniture that, if I were not careful, I would surely bang my toe on a leg of the couch or hit the corner of a table. I felt out of place, I guess. I’ve always felt out of place here, in the early hours of the morning. The house is ready to jump me. The only other person within it, too, ready to fight me. I feel like sometimes I was the only thing with clarity in this hazy atmosphere I wake up to every morning, but that’s probably just because I am so aware of myself? I wasn’t sure, and I’ve never been sure. It was probably because I just woke up so early every morning that I felt this way. I’d like to think that was why, and not that it was probably because of — anyway. 

I stepped slowly and light-footed towards the kitchen. I went past Dad’s door. I shouldn’t look in. It would be rude. An invasion of privacy. I didn’t care what he was up to anyway. What he did was his business, I didn’t give a shit about him. I looked anyway, through the sliver of the door I was offered. I heard the snoring more clearly before I saw anything well, and what I saw was only little, but I’ve seen it enough for my mind to piece together everything. 

The bottles were the easiest to see, the glass caught the sickly orange glow of the street lights easily, harbingers for me. I’ve had several thrown at me, only a couple have ever landed. Dad has always favored bourbon, whiskey, scotch. Sturdy bottles. Harder bottles. I dread the day a bottle of Blanton’s actually manages to knock me upside the skull, again — _I’ve gotten faster though;_ _can’t hit what you can’t catch_. My eyes swirled over to the familiar unfamiliar body next to him. The sheets left nothing to the imagination, that’s for sure. 

The way the orange bled into the room, slashing across the woman’s and Dad’s body only just allowed me to see the lovers who uncover, close to each other. I felt my face screw up, nose scrunching up and my mouth tight as always whenever I see what my Dad gets up to in his spare time. I feel like I’ve been here a thousand times before. I’m tired of substitutions. 

I backed away from the room at the growl of my stomach, some divine intervention or a signal from my brain to my bod that _ yeah, that’s way grody. Get out of here. Beat your feet, cat.  _ So I did. I beelined towards the fridge, grabbing two eggs, and some good ol’ OJ. I grabbed a frying pan off the hooks over the kitchen island and set it down on the stove as quiet as I could. I drizzled some olive oil over the pan and lit the stove, hearing the quiet  _ click- click- click-  _ before the  _ fwoomp  _ of flames cascaded around the eye. Cracking the eggs on the lip of the pan was hard when you were trying to be quiet, but I managed to do it every day for years. The eggs hit the pan and turned white instantly, with smalling popping noises emanating from the pan. They cooked quickly, so I slid them out of the pan in no time onto a plate. 

Then I heard the snoring pattern change. I tensed. Time to shovel these frickin’ eggs into my mouth. I opened up the utensil drawer with a collective  _ clink  _ and I picked out a fork and shoveled the eggs in my mouth. The yolk burst and I felt it run down my chin just as a    
“Cheetor?” wafted out of the room.  _ Shit.  _ I grabbed the orange juice carton,  _ mine now,  _ and ran for the front door. I banged my hip on the open drawer but didn’t bother to slap it shut. I slipped on my shoes without untying them and slammed the door behind me, just as I heard my Dad’s door creak open. 

~~~ _ _

Nothing like jogging down to Nightscream’s drinking an entire carton of orange juice while  _ White Wedding  _ dishes out of your WM in 30-degree weather, that’s for sure. My face felt numb, and I wiped at it again, making sure I got off the yellow gunk from the eggs. The orange juice tasted kinda off, but I guess that is what I get for drinking orange juice immediately after brushing my teeth. It tasted better the more I washed out the taste of placid mint. 

I saw Nightscream’s house, and speed up, my feet swimming up and down and harder thuds resounded on the concrete. I made sure the cap was tighter on the juice, and changed my stride, sprinting on my toes, then widened my stride as I hit the curb into the driveway, to the door. I went to reach for the spare key on top of the doorway, but the door opened and Nightscream’s Mom — I’ve always called her Mrs. Nyx, despite her insistence that I could call her Chiropteria — was there. 

She was very... stereotypical looking for a mom, body-wise. Archetype? She fits the archetype well. She was a short, plump woman, though she had broad shoulders, and she dressed like she was ready to go to throw down in the mosh pit. I really liked to go out clothes shopping with her, though. She shared my love of animal print, so she had taste, obviously. I kept trying to convince Nightscream that it was  _ cool,  _ but he’d just scrunch up his button nose at me and tell me that I sounded like his mom. 

Miss Nyx was a nice woman. She was all over me when I came over, asking if I would like something to drink or if I was hungry at the time. At first, I always shyly turned down her offers of drinks and food, but I had done my best to get over it. I didn’t want to think I didn’t like her or anything like that, and I had gotten more comfortable with her. I had begun to notice she was tougher on Nightscream, but loved him all the same. Sometimes she’d come up behind him and give him a noogie when he was playing his games or whatever, and I was chilling beside him. I almost always caught her stalking up behind us in the corner of my eye, but she’d look to me with a twinkle in her eye. A singular, darkly-painted, dainty finger raised to her curved lips and I’d flash her a smile, too. Then she would pounce on him, reaching over the couch and grasping him in a headlock and grinding her knuckles across his already messy hair and he’d shout and she’d laugh and I’d look at them, watch them. Sometimes, she would call Nightscream a  _ little Hellion  _ in one of the softest tones I’ve ever heard — a tone I remember my Mom speaking to me in, once upon a time — and give him a kiss on the forehead within seconds of each other, and not always in that order. He’d blow his tongue at her and she’d call him a  _ brat _ , and he was sometimes, and as a goodbye, he would sometimes flip her off, and she would grin and send him on his way with a finger, too. 

“NIGHTSCREAM!” I jumped. For such a small woman, she shouted loudly. 

“_I’m UP.” _I heard Nightscream shout. I loved being over at Nightscream’s, part of the reason was that their house bustled with life, with noise; vibrancy and intimacy flitted through the house. Nightscream also had to be up earlier than usual, because Miss Nyx had to go to work in the morning and make sure Nightscream was up on time.   
“NIGHTSCREAM.” She called back over her shoulder. I smiled sheepishly, a little awkward standing outside. She turned her head toward me and smiled. 

“Good morning, Cheetor. How are you, hun?” 

“I’m fine. A lil’ cold this morning, though. Winter came early this year, I guess.” She jumped at that, 

“Oh! Cheetor, get your butt inside, dear.  _ Nightscream _ will be down in a bit.” She stepped aside and I went through the door, she patted my shoulder and grabbed her keys from the ring beside the door. 

“Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I gotta get to work. Have a good day!”

“Bye, Miss Nyx.” The door shut behind me. I heard thumping coming up the stairs, from the basement. Nightscream appeared around the corner not too long after. I smiled at him. It was still a little dark outside, but the light caught on his eternally fluffy, messy hair, dyed horribly with blonde highlights, highlights that I had helped him with, and his dark roots showing. His eyes caught in the light too, and they turned almost yellow, flecks of gold and amber in his large brown eyes. Pretty. He is my friend. He is my  _ friend,  _ he is my very pretty friend and it’s just natural to think your friends are pretty. Pretty like a girl. Girls are also pretty, I think. 

“Hey, man!” He crossed the room and I met him halfway, bringing my hand to clap to his and pull each other in half of a hug. I felt my heart punch into my chest a little harder, and I hoped he wouldn’t have felt the throb of my heart, or have heard the thump of my heart. I was always afraid that he would hear my heart, whenever he was around, or when he smiled at me, or when he let me sit close to him while we played video games, or when he’d kick his feet up over my lap, so he could get more comfortable.

I patted his back, and his giant tuft of hair tickled my nose. He smelled stifling, he obviously put on a little (a lot) of cologne, but I don’t think I mind all that much. Probably because he is my friend. He is my _best_ _friend, my pretty best friend -_

“Nightscream,  _ dude _ . You’re a pain in the ass but this is like, record time for agitating your mom this early in the morning.” He cackled a little, high pitched and ringing. Perfect.

“What can I say, it's a talent of mine.” I chuffed and bumped his shoulder with my fist. 

“Come on dude, time to get ready and jet.” He scrunched up his nose at that. Cute. Gosh, he was cute. 

“Dude, it’s like...” he looked at the clock. It was 6 when I left the house, probably. “6:45. It is 6:45. We don’t even gotta  _ think _ about school right now.” 

“Well, I know that,” I shuffled my feet, “I was just kinda thinking that we could maybe swing by this little gas station I know about, they have this really good coffee there and, you know,” Nightscream cocked an eyebrow. “This outlet where cigs are a lil’ cheaper.” I cringed. He wasn’t supposed to know about that. I’ve been smoking for about two weeks now, and while I know it’s not the best habit, it helps me relax. It helps me focus. I feel like it helps me get a little closer to Rattrap — I like sitting in the silence, leaning on the brick wall and smoking with Ratts. “It’s by the Axalon Apartments.” Nightscream’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. 

“The Axalon Apartments,  _ huh _ .” He said, incredulously. He leaned in closer to me. “So,  _ that’s  _ where you’ve been spending all your time, do—” I felt my eyebrows raise, a little confused at the sudden pause. “Did you say cigs? Cheetor, dude. What have you been doing?” Oh shit, I was hoping that he hadn’t caught that little slip-up. “ _ Cheets _ , my bro. My best-est bro.  _ Bro. _ ” Oh, geez. 

~~~

Nightscream drove to the outlet in his slightly beat-up 1980 Toyota Corolla, his long fingers drumming to the beat of  _ Buddy Holly  _ coming out of the radio, while I sang - 

_ Don't look now but I lost my shoe,  _

_ I can't run and I can't kick _

_ What's a matter, babe, are you feelin' sick? _

_ What's a matter, what's a matter, what's a matter you? _

_ What's a matter, babe, are you feelin' blue? Wh-oh-oh~! _ \- 

The colors of fall dying into winter blurred around us as we went down the highway about 15 over the speed limit. Other motorists on the highway probably going at least 20 over the speed limit, if them passing us already was any indication to go by. Nightscream humphed when one final car was able to pass us, a yellow beetle, and he pressed his foot down closer to the floorboard. Nightscream was not level-headed, and he liked to race strangers down the highway, it was a favorite past time of his, I guess. I just wish that he wouldn’t race strangers when I was in the car with him. He veered quickly to the right into Axalon, with horns blaring behind him from disgruntled drivers and a harsh shout of  _ “DUDE!” _ from me. I nearly banged my head into the window, but Nightscream just whooped and said, 

“Well, at least we didn’t get sideswiped.”

“Dude, it’s too early in the morning to be playing chicken.” I tried to sound serious, but it was really hard to stay serious when he just grinned to me and punched my shoulder and rocked me a little bit. I looked at him trying to keep a straight face, but I felt my resolve break the longer he looked at me, and I grinned at him, too. I felt the engine rev.

“C’mon man let’s go get some cigs.” 

~~~

I leaned up against the wall, with Nightscream beside me. I was in my normal spot from where I would hang out with Rattrap - Nightscream was to the left of me as opposed to Rattrap being to the right. I wonder if they would get along? I doubt it. Rattrap was pretty mean spirited, sometimes, and so was Nightscream, and both were pretty snarky. I know a lot of people think that alike people get along together, but... I feel like it would just be different with Nightscream and Rattrap. Rattrap sure was jaded for a dude who was only 22, and Nightscream was pretty... pretty - shoot. He was just a really teenage douchebag stereotype. I wouldn’t have him any other way. 

He had his skateboard out and was running it back and forth with one foot, while I popped a cigarette in my mouth. I lit it with the box of matches I carried on me now. Breathed in, just like Rattrap showed me how — closed my lips tight around the butt, exhaled through my nose. I slumped further against the brick wall, closing my eyes, in a vain attempt to block out the world, if only for a little while. I had one headphone over my ear and the other slid back behind, in case Nightscream wanted to talk. I was always glad to hear him talk, even about all the parties he had gone to while I stayed behind. It made me feel left behind, alone, but I was nervous. I didn’t want anything to happen to me at a party - didn’t want to get drunk and let words slip that I could never take back. I could always lie and use the excuse that I was drunk, but there was always that saying that people were more honest when they were drunk. There shouldn’t be alcohol at parties, but I knew better — suburban parties planned while well-to-do parents were out of town on a business meeting or a vacation, and rebellious and curious teenagers getting their hands on their stash. Sometimes they moved to College Square, and held block parties, with alcohol as admission price, among other things. Nothing I would want to do with. 

“Bro.” He broke the silence. “Bro, I can see the smoke pouring out your ears. Stop thinking so hard.” He went harder on board on the backstroke, making a strong  _ clack _ . “It is making  _ my  _ head hurt.” I huffed at him. Sure, I wasn’t like the smartest person in school, but  _ I  _ felt like I was a pretty solid thinker. 

“You’re just jealous that I think, dude. You should try it out sometime.” He let out a snort. 

“Dude, you know I don’t think - its funnier if I don’t.” 

“It gets you into trouble, ketchup boy.”   
“No, it makes some comedy gold, man. I don’t have to worry about what comes out of my mouth, its pure, unadulterated thoughts without a filter. I mean - sure, I think I say some pretty gnarly shit sometimes and it hurts people’s feelings, but I apologize and all that good stuff that I’m supposed to do.” 

There was a lull in the conversation, I really didn’t know what to say about that. I liked Nightscream, a lot - he was my  _ best friend _ . But, he was rough around the edges and didn’t watch what he said, and it hurt people’s feelings. Hurt my feelings a couple of times, but I know he didn’t mean to. He expected people to be considerate of him when he wasn’t very considerate to others, and I don’t think he quite realized that. I mean, he was a good friend, otherwise, coming through for me when I needed it most. Letting me stay the night at his house, letting me sleep beside him, even though he had quipped with humor and what I felt was light disdain - “Dude, that’s  _ gay.” _ It had made me freeze at the time, fear sinking its way into my throat and sinking its gnarled claws and halting itself in my throat, choking me, until he punched my shoulder and laughed, and patted the space beside him. He was pretty, too, so I think I could find it in myself to forgive him a little bit. 

“Can I have a hit?” I snapped my head over at Nightscream. I chewed on my lip, considering my options. 

“If your mom found out-” he interrupted me, “She doesn’t have to know.” He outstretched his hand, knocking on the brick wall behind us. “Come on, dude. Don’t hold out on me.” He looked at me, and I to him. He made a dumb face and fluttered his eyelashes at me. “Pretty please.” He had asked in a mock version of a little girl’s voice. I huffed at him. “You’re awful.” I popped the cigarette out of my mouth and handed it to him, pitched in my forefinger and thumb, while he took it between his middle and forefinger. Different from me, similar but different. As usual. As with everything else. 

He lifted the cigarette up to his mouth and I watched him do so, and I felt my throat bob when I realized that it was kind of like a kiss. I mean, he would put his lips on a butt of a cigarette instead of mine. I wouldn’t mind kissing him, I don’t think. His lips are chapped and he gnaws on them with his crooked and slightly misshapen teeth, with his uncommonly sharp canines and all. He inhaled and immediately coughed out the smoke, his body wracking. I jerked and patted his back. 

“You good, bro?” He nodded while his eyes watered, and immediately convulsed when another wave of coughs came and choked him up. I started to laugh a little and he glared at me, teary-eyed and punched me extra hard in the shoulder. I took the cigarette, between my forefinger and thumb, and kissed him back, softly and silently, and grinned. 

~~~

We arrived at school somewhere at 7:45, just as the bell rang.

I didn’t go to parties much. It’s not that I was ever not invited to them. It is just that I would rather have better control of myself. Even if alcohol wasn’t present, which it always was, I know because Nightscream coming to me with one hangover too many, that doesn’t stop the manic euphoria emitted by fifty-something teenagers from outright trashing the place and getting others to join in with them — from doing stupid things. 

I had a lot of things going for me at the moment. Coach would skin me alive if he even found out I went to any of the parties I got invited to. It’s not that he didn’t like parties, it is just the parties that I got invited to were notorious for having a little  _ more _ than just weed and alcohol, as per usual highschool/college parties that happened at the Block. It was almost like a recruiting thing for the Preda, if the rumors were to be believed. It made me nervous. 

Nightscream always made fun of me for it, and then he’d talk about how much of a blast he had - doing keg stands, which I know for a fact he did not, and kissing girls, which I also doubted. At the very least, if he  _ was  _ kissing girls, and there's a thought that didn’t sit well that I tried to shrug off nearly immediately, he could kiss  _ whoever  _ he wanted and I’m not supposed to care, I hope that the girls he was supposedly kissing didn’t have a cold sore or something. I mean, if I  _ ever _ got to kiss him - now that was a very, very dangerous thought - I didn’t want to get cold sores. I doubt I wouldn’t be kissing him any time soon. I mean I shared a cigarette with him and drank after him. We shared drinks. That could transfer some pretty nasty stuff. It’d be my luck - “Look, the  _ gay _ boy got something from swapping spit.” Not that anyone  _ knew _ , I kept it to myself. I was on the team with some pretty mean people - slapping each other with towels in the locker rooms and calling each other  _ gay  _ and saying  _ “No, haha, that’s gay dude. Don’t do that,” _ or just... a lot of slurs being thrown around. I always flinched a little when the f-word flew around the walls in the locker rooms, with bright red lockers opened up and a mirror in my own, shouts and hollers of slurs and degradation, and the mirror looked back at me, framing my dumb, young, freckled face, like it was calling me those things. They were always careful to not do it around Coach, though. I don’t know if it was because he didn’t like the vulgar language -  _ yeah, he ripped Scorp a new one after he had called someone a  _ cunt, _ and made him do extra laps for two weeks after that.  _ Which I appreciated a little, silently. Scorponok was pretty mean spirited and was a better football star than doing track. It’s not because he was slow, or that he didn’t have the stamina to sustain the speed that was required of him on long-distance - and that’s what he did, it's just that I guess since he couldn’t tackle and smash anyone into the ground, he got extra aggressive in track practice when it did come around. It was the end of football season, though, but he was still a little more tolerable, I guess? I didn’t like talking to him for very long — 

I guess I was pretty lost in thought about imaginary cooties and parties and kissing Nightscream and being hurt and Coach  _ maybe _ being someone that could and would support me and dumb team members that I didn’t notice Airazor trying to get my attention until she shoved her foot at my own. I looked over at her and she was smiling, dimples curling up on a dark cheek and thick curly hair fuzzing out over her face and around her with her cat-eye glasses and little rhinestones in them, with a glint in her eyes. She always looked friendly, even when she was kicking you in the shin and with a mischievous glint. She was fun to be around. She was well-mannered around teachers but was actually unashamedly goofy and clumsy, but never mean in her humor. She was especially silly when she was around Tigatron. They both got kinda dumb when they were around each other, though. I thought it was sweet, silently. Nightscream thought it was gross. 

She leaned sideways out of her desk while Clamp had his back turned up at the board, and flung me a note. I looked towards her and she was looking forward at the board, but I saw her side-eye me and smile lightly. I looked back down at the note, glancing up a little when I was opening it to make sure that Clamp was still busy droning at the board. 

_ Want to go to the Block on Halloween? -  _ ♥★

I felt my eyebrows shot up to my hairline and I glanced at Airazor, and she cheekily winked at me. 

“Talk to you after class?” She mouthed. I pursed my lips. I nodded. 

~~

“The Block, huh.” 

She wrung her hands out in front of her, sweater almost engulfing her entire arm. 

“Yeah.” She was nervous, which was out of place for her. Her asking to go to the Block was very out of place. “It’s just...” she began. I raised my eyebrows, waiting patiently. “I don’t know I feel like a shut-in, I guess. I mean I’m almost always working and I feel... I feel boring, Cheetor.” I felt my face scrunch at that. 

“Woah, Woah, hey... you aren’t boring, you are one of the nicest people I’ve met and you’re like, super smart. You got a keen eye for a lot of things where I’m, like, too oblivious to see and like you’re super studious and you always have the best jokes like —” I was rambling. I knew I was rambling but I was trying hard to cheer her up, “You remember that one where Mr. Highland kept bending ‘ver and we kept getting a face full of like ass, so you just started to say ‘look at  _ that  _ roast  _ beef _ ’ and we almost got like detention together and-”She put her hands on my arms. She was smiling, though it looked a little watery. She laughed a little and sniffled. I offered my sleeve to her and she just shook her head and took out a wipe from her purse. 

“I don’t know, man. I feel like I’m just letting my life slip through and not experience things teenagers should, you know?” I did know. I know a lot about that. 

“Life isn’t like a teenage beach movie, Razor.” I wished it was though. It’d be easier. Some minor drama goes down but it’s alright in the end. 

“I know it’s just...”

“I know.” 

“So will you?”

I thought. I thought about Nightscream. I thought about my dad. He wouldn’t know where I’ve gone but he wouldn’t have cared unless there was some dumb banquet his company was holding, which there wasn’t. 

“Whose house on the Block?” 

“Scorponok’s.” I huffed at that and she grinned lightly. 

“Booze?” She nodded, her hair bouncing with the movement. I sighed, and she shifted from foot to foot. I loved her dearly. She was a sister to me. I didn’t want her to go alone.

“What about Tigatron? Doesn’t he want to go?” I know he wouldn’t want to. But he’d want Airazor to go out and have fun. Tigatron tended to be more of a homebody anyway, or going out and messing around in the woods, searching for salamanders and frogs, climbing trees and taking pictures.

“I think you already know the answer to that, Cheetor. I want you to come with me!” She grabbed my hand and squeezed. I huffed. I thought about Nightscream again. He’d want to go. I wanted so badly to say yes. I thought about Coach. I thought about Nightscream. I thought about Airazor. I thought about being alone. I thought about roaming around outside late at night because I didn’t want to return home, and Rattrap had already said goodnight and sent me out on my way. I thought about how cold it was.  _ I thought about Nightscream. _ “I guess I have no choice, huh, Razor.”

The smile on her face could power the world. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. Smells Like Sex and Candy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheetor gets into it big time.

* * *

Cheetor had no idea what he had gotten himself into when he had said  _ yes,  _ that he  _ would _ take Airazor to the party and offer Nightscream a spot in, too, because Cheetor  _ was _ popular and he  _ could _ get his friends in without anyone really giving them a glance over. Cheetor knew this well, so he wasn’t worried when Nightscream pulled up on The Block, on Halloween night and the air crisp, the orange street lights catching the plating of every other car lined up along the sidewalk of a house bumping with life - Scorponok’s house. 

There were people in costumes heading out towards the house, laughter and thumping music drifting in the air. Cheetor knew vaguely that Scorponok lived somewhere near The Block, but not  _ in _ it. 

The Block, simply put, was a hub of cheap housing for college students, conveniently built near the state university in the 70s. It was a place where Greek life glitzed with glamor and the student walls often saw harsh Initiation rituals — rituals that sometimes got people hospitalized. Cheetor never saw benefits in Initiation, he knew that it was to form a sort of solidarity, that it was meant to connect you with your Frat Brother or Sorority Sister, but all Cheetor saw it as an excuse to hurt people needlessly. Cheetor thought of a fresh-faced freshman being dunked in a pool repeatedly - held down and being brought up gasping and sputtering, desperately trying to intake air before being dunked down again, or being forced to intake so much alcohol that it had come back up as an acrid slurry of stomach acid and stale alcohol - his heart twisted at the thought of teary-eyed, college freshman hurting themselves in order to be accepted. 

Cheetor had no interest in being hazed - best to stay away from frats. Rumor also had it, that the Initiation sometimes got people involved with The Preda. But, Despite the Initiations, despite the ever-encroaching presence of Preds, The Block still hummed and was active only late in the night to early in the morning, and was mostly quiet during the day — with people nursing hangovers or out in town at the mall or the more responsible ones attending their morning classes. 

But that was during the day — now the sun had gone down and it was nearing 11:45 at night and people were still entering the house. Rowdy friends pushing and shoving each other and sashaying girls walking towards the function with hair swaying behind them, in skimpy Halloween outfits - Cheetor caught Nightscream leering. Cheetor may or may not have flicked Nightscream on his giant, flustered ear. 

Cheetor glanced at the back seat towards Airazor, in her costume - she was a harpy, he remembered. He knew vaguely what they were - winged, mean, and ugly creatures meant to torment people for the rest of their lives. Cheetor thought it was ironic. Airazor was anything  _ but  _ those qualities attributed to the Harpy. Nevertheless, her costume was well done and well put together - he hoped that the feathers would stay on her winged cape. He imagined it had taken her quite a bit to get the costume completed, and even more trying to get her poofy, tightly coiled hair the way she wanted it. 

Cheetor’s gaze trailed over to Nightscream who was chattering on excitedly in his fake vampire fangs about  _ the Babes _ \- maybe they’d be interested in his guitar shredding skills - Cheetor doubted it. Nightscream was hardly good, having to nearly bend over the neck of the guitar to look at his finger placement, and every few strums were metallic and out of tune. He could barely play the opening to  _ Come As You Are _ , let alone shred on a guitar, as he was so insistent on bragging to Airazor. 

“Dude, the only thing you’d be shredding anytime soon are eardrums.” As soon as the joke slipped out of his mouth, he wilted internally a little bit, upset that he had let that slip knowing that Nightscream was sensitive about it, but he was trying not it let it show, keeping a playful demeanor until Nightscream proved to be actually upset about it. But Airazor let out a small giggle and Nightscream only huffed, before socking Cheetor in the arm. Luck was on his side, it was probably the good mood that everyone was in, or rather, the promise of a good time. 

Cheetor smiled down at his winged shoes. Airazor had insisted on him dressing up, too. He let her dress him up — Hermes. God of athletes and messengers, thieves and trade. Cheetor hadn’t known what he had wanted to dress up as and wasn’t going to dress up, to begin with. Nightscream and Airazor had insisted otherwise. So now he sat in the passenger’s side of the car with his thighs sticking to the plastic leather of Nightscream’s car, in a white  _ dress _ , as Nightscream had put it, winged sneakers — he didn’t want his feet to get cold in sandals, seeing as he was going to practically  _ freeze _ — and feathers tucked in his ears, with a false gold wreath. Golden trim lined the short chiton. In short, Cheetor felt foolish. 

But Airazor was proud of her costume design, so he had let her dress him up and make quick work of a costume. Or she had planned it — there was no way that someone could finish a costume under such quick notice. 

A raucous bout of laughter drew Cheetor from thought, and he looked over at the entryway of the house. He drew a quick breath in, shaking the nerves that had built up. “Well, Cats, I think it’s about time to jet. Let’s go.” 

Nightscream cut the car off, and with it, the heat. Cheetor stepped out and was instantly greeted with the frigid grasp of the dying autumn night. He shivered and it traveled all the way from the small of his back to the base of his skull. Embarrassingly, the compression shorts he wore under the tunic were quickly becoming a mistake. He should’ve worn something thicker, something that wasn’t so undemanding to the cold, absorbing it easily. He jogged in place to keep warm, not quite futile but —  _ couldn’t he get warm any quicker! _

He heard laughs from behind him and Nightscream not soon came up behind him and slapped his back, nearly toppling him, with Airazor coming to his right. “Eager to go?” She had asked playfully. 

Cheetor shook his head. “Just  _ cold.  _ Come on let’s go.” 

He had all but bounded his way over to the entryway, waving at passersby who shouted excitedly, shouts of,  _ “Hey! Cheetor!”  _ and  _ “Cheetor’s here y’all!”  _ and some jeers of being able to see up Cheetor’s  _ skirt _ when he ran, the wind flapping the tunic. Joking wolf whistles and catcalls to which Cheetor just laughed, though he did fluster. It was indistinguishable on his tanned skin, already slightly flushed with the chill. 

At the entryway, Scorponok had stepped out, smirking and with a glint in his eyes. Cheetor skidded to a halt, while Scorponok just held out his hand. To be sportsmanlike and not get kicked out of the party before he even entered, he threw away his distaste and took his hand, not expecting Scorponok to pull Cheetor to his body, landing on his chest with a dull  _ thud _ and a small bit of air escaping Cheetor -  _ oof _ . Scorponok promptly clapped his back. Cheetor weakly returned the clap, a little dazed - a little flustered being pulled to his chest so suddenly. 

“Thought you’d never show,  _ superstar _ . I was beginning to think that you thought you were too good for us.” Scorponok quipped equal parts nastily and jokingly. Cheetor flinched back at the quip.

“What? I-I’d -,” Cheetor tripped over his words, trying to excuse himself. 

“Calm down. It was just a joke. No harm in a joke, right?” Scorponok brushed Cheetor’s stuttering off, which Cheetor doubted was out of mercy. He’d probably make fun of it later. Scorponok stepped back and stretched skin - he was dressed as what appeared to be a stereotypical barbarian, like Conan,  _ probably Conan _ , Cheetor noted - rippling over the motion. _ Kirituhi  _ over his skin, though he had paraded them around as if they actually meant something. 

Coach had taken one look at Scorponok’s tattoos and snorted. As compared to his near full-body  _ tā moko _ , which actually  _ meant  _ something, Scorponok’s tattoos were unimpressive. However, Cheetor thought they  _ were  _ nice. It made Cheetor fluster a little though - a giant ambiguous scorpion on his right pec, its tail curling over to his arm, and claws reaching out to the other side of his chest. Cheetor spied bruises on his chest, though, they weren’t yellow — he spied more on his neck. 

_ Ah _ , so... Cheetor expected that to happen at the party. 

Scorponok caught him staring and a sleazy grin had spread across his face. Before he could say anything, though, Airazor and Nightscream came up behind Cheetor. Scorponok gave them an uninterested once over. Scorponok popped off from where he was leaning on the door frame and stepped aside, into the chaotic sprawl of young adults and —-  _ adult  _ adults, an odd older look man lingering in the corner, adorning a lab coat with fake blood splattered on it and a mesh shirt — with two others, looking a little younger than he, equally as wild-looking to the man beside them. One dressed as a Teutonic knight, minus the helmet, exposing a pierced face and wild eyes, and the other, skittish and dressed as what Cheetor thought was a... bee?

Nightscream pushed him in further before Cheetor could take a good look at the group, laughter, and music thumping in the house, alive and coming to fruition in its messy and loud energy. Cheetor tried to capture everything at once, but it was impossible. Had Nightscream not been dragging him around, he was sure that his head would’ve spun around on his neck, trying to look at everything all at once. His mind was on the fritz, nose trying to catch up on all the sounds and scents — it smelled heady and sweet and sharp and what smelled like weed, somewhere in the back of the house — it smelled like sex and candy. 

That was only how Cheetor knew to describe it. It smelled like a party. What else could he say?  _ “Words are fickle things, sometimes,”  _ rang throughout Cheetor’s head.  _ “They have this funny thing they do - they tend to fall short and can be misunderstood. Actions,”  _ his Coach had paused to encourage an equally fast member, Blurr, clapping him on the shoulder and smiling down at him “ _ ...are better than words.”  _

Cheetor thought the advice wasn’t that great at the moment. 

He didn’t really know how to  _ act _ in this situation. Why’d he have to remember the wrong types of advice in the wrong situations? He supposed that it would do good to look out, into the party, and mingle. He took a deep breath and went amongst the chattering and writhing bodies of heated students. 

* * *

It was two in the morning. 

Two something. He hadn’t known where Airazor and Nightscream went off, too, shouts resounding towards the back of the house, where there was an inground pool, heated. Cheetor felt heavy. A girl had given him a cup of Pepsi a while back, he didn’t quite catch her name. He said that he wasn’t ready to drink, so she had shrugged and handed him a soda.

She also gave him a cup of fruit, which smelled oddly sweet, but his eyes brightened at the assorted melons and strawberry and kiwi. He popped a melon ball into his mouth, the chill of the cold melon filling his mouth and rattling his teeth - it was  _ juicy.  _ Oddly so. Odd tasting, too, but it was still sweet, it was still melon, and Cheetor had popped another piece of fruit into his mouth. “Fanks,” he said through a mouth full of strawberry. After that, she had kept handing him the cups of fruit, and he kept eating the oddly juicy, oddly sweet, oddly heady fruit. He started to feel fuzzy, and warm, and his face felt heated, and it was only after he had eaten around 10 cups, had he realized that  _ maybe _ he shouldn’t be eating the fruit and that  _ maybe _ , just  _ maybe _ , the fruit had been soaked in vodka for who knows how long. He had been drinking the juice at the bottom of the cup too. 

Cheetor felt his tongue get heavier, his heart get lighter. His chest felt unrestricted, and his brain uninhibited. He let the words and jokes flow. She had only giggled and popped a piece of fruit into her mouth too, the juice squirting everywhere when she bit into it. 

Cheetor and the woman paused when it sprayed into his face. They looked at each other and immediately burst into a fit of giggles. He clutched his white tunic in between tanned, freckled fingers, grasping and wiping his face off with the end of the cloth - when a low whistle sounded. He dropped his tunic, confused, turning around to try and pinpoint the source of the whistling, all the while he felt his face turning red - oh gosh, he had forgotten that he was out in public. How embarrassing. He didn’t really find it in himself to care all that much.  _ But what about Coach? What would he think? What if someone had gotten a picture and said that you had gotten absolutely smashed and started to strip?  _ Cheetor didn’t really find it in himself to care. He stumbled around regardless, finding Nightscream behind him, two Nightscreams,  _ three Nightscreams _ , then blurring back into one Nightscream, with a scrunched up  _ cute, doubly cute, thrice cute,  _ elvish face, colored with a mood Cheetor couldn’t quite comprehend at the moment. 

In his stupor, Cheetor remained quiet. 

“ _ Nice _ , man. I guess you felt like your costume was more of a tight ass shorts kind of look, huh?” Cheetor felt his face burn. He didn’t want to dignify that with a response. He wasn’t sure if he even could respond. Instead, he had popped another piece of fruit into his mouth. The girl beside him only stood close behind him.

“Not gonna answer, bro?” Nightscream got closer, oddly stand-offish, glancing at the girl next to him every so often. He  _ also  _ kinda smelled funny, and Cheetor saw that his entire front was wet. 

“Wuzzat?” Cheetor slurred, pointing at Nightscream’s front. 

Nightscream’s face darkened. And then he promptly reared back and  _ punched _ Cheetor in the face. 

* * *

Nightscream remembered when he first met Cheetor. He was a tall boy, even at the age of 8. Or it was because Nightscream was always  _ short.  _ Those were one of the few constants in their ten years together - Cheetor would always be tall, Nightscream would always be short. 

Another constant about Cheetor is that he always had those funny freckles, covered head to toe in them. He remembered coming up to Cheetor, because of the freckles - he had never seen somebody with so much. He looked at Cheetor, and his round face; golden, wheat-colored hair, flushed cheeks, and those  _ freckles.  _ In a moment of genius color-and-shape association, he opened his mouth and called Cheetor  _ Pizza Face _ \- which made the taller boy burst into fat tears. 

Nightscream was promptly escorted to the Principal’s office. 

He was forced to apologize to the boy, and though he couldn’t really look at Cheetor’s face, because his face was so  _ funny _ or because he actually felt guilty, he heard Cheetor say softly, watery, “It’s okay.”

Cheetor would wave at him then, goading him to come and play. Nightscream figured he would. The other kids didn’t really like Nightscream - picking on him for his height and for his teeth, at first — and then not wanting to talk to him  _ period _ , because Nightscream figured retaliation was in order. Nightscream grew up quick-witted and mean because of it. He had the terrifying penchant to be able to look at someone and point out their biggest insecurities, and rib them for it, if he had to. And if he didn’t get the biggest insecurity the first time, he would another time. The first time he had done this was to a middle schooler named Terrorsaur, whose voice was oddly high-pitched and particularly grating,  _ especially _ when he started to scream. Unfortunately to everyone around the 8th grader, that was quite often. Nightscream and Cheetor were in 6th grade at the time. Terrorsaur had been screeching and Nightscream, just as loud, just as grating, had started to shout back. 

“You got the ugliest voice I’ve ever heard in my  _ life,”  _ Nightscream had shouted 

“Right back at ya, you pig-nosed  _ fuck _ ,” Terrorsaur had shrieked. The people around them gasped. It was middle school after all — now was the time to say fuck and be liberated. 

Nightscream could feel the heat rising in his face — not out of embarrassment, but rather, anger. He could hear a teacher trying to get through the barricade of kids surrounding them. 

“Eyebrows,” Nighscream had said simply. Terrorsaur had reeled back at that. Score for Nightscream. “Not so good to be a vain bastard,  _ huh _ , Terrorsaur.” Terrorsaur spat at him like an angry cat.

Unfortunately for Nightscream, the moment Nightscream had called Terrorsaur a  _ bastard _ , was the moment a teacher had finally broken through. Also unfortunately for Nightscream, Cheetor wasn’t there — he had gotten a pretty nasty bruise on the side of his head from where he had run into a pole, Cheetor had told him, and he had a gnarly headache, so he’d stay home that day — , and Nightscream didn’t  _ have _ any other friends. He was surrounded by unkind kids who had witnessed the fight. Terrorsaur got out just fine.

Nightscream only felt a little bit better the next day, when everyone wouldn’t stop staring at Terrorsaur because he had gone home and plucked his eyebrows, and had done a not-so-great job at it. His forehead was an angry red from where it was agitated. And Cheetor was back, so he felt doubly better. 

* * *

It was no surprise to Nightscream that Cheetor would begin to rise in popularity, especially when he had hit puberty over the summer break entering Sophomore year, and gaining, even more, entering the Junior year. What surprised Nightscream was how Cheetor stayed with him, no matter how popular he got - or the events that he had to attend. He always invited Nightscream. They were “ _ the best of bros,”  _ as Cheetor had put it in his sophomore year, after Nightscream had embarrassingly sobbed into his arms about feeling  _ insecure _ and  _ stupid _ for not being able to keep up with the workload in AP Biology. Nightscream had chalked it up to dumb, stupid, teenage hormones and the stress that year. _ _

Cheetor denied dates from pretty girls to hang out with him, go down to Freddy’s and share a milkshake and steal each other’s fries or onion rings while eating the biggest, greasiest burgers imaginable. And on prom night, in their Junior year, Cheetor had went to prom with him, and stayed with him, no matter the people trying to catch his attention and the others trying ot get him to dance with them. He and Nightscream went out on the floor on more upbeat songs and goofed off, shoving each other around the dance floor until they  _ were _ actually dancing. 

When the slow songs had started up, Cheetor had joked to him and asked him: “Would you want to dance with me?” Nightscream had laughed. Thinking back on it, Cheetor hadn’t very much looked like he was joking. And the more Nightscream thought about it, the more he was drawing conclusions that he didn’t really  _ think _ he wanted to draw. 

Nightscream remembered that Cheetor had slumped a little, but he grinned regardless. 

“Let’s go out to Waffle House. It’s always better late in the morning, dude.” So they had. And Cheetor was right, as usual. He just had the intuition, that experience, and he had that popularity and intelligence, and it made Nightscream boil with anger, now more than ever. 

It was unwarranted. Nightscream knew it to be so. 

Cheetor never left him. Cheetor never left his side, and Cheetor never would have hurt him on purpose. So why was he so goddamn _angry_ when he walked down the stairs at the party, after having a drink poured on him and then being laughed at by drunken, sneering strangers. The girl he was talking to looked apologetic, but it was a cheap consolation prize, for she was giggling lightly, her friend pulling her away from him. 

When he had looked at Cheetor, giggling with a girl, and she giggled with him, rather than  _ at him _ , and he was soaked with alcohol,  _ too _ , it had made Nightscream enraged. That was his best friend, and they should’ve been soaked with alcohol brooding together, or soaked with alcohol laughing together - but, it was as true as ever that their experiences would seem to always be different. 

So, Nightscream had stepped down the steps, the party still going on strong, the three weirdos peering out the window and whispering to each other rapidly, trying to get Scorponok’s dumbass attention, Airazor rifling through the bookshelves drunkenly and sitting next to a woman and man and talking about whatever nerd stuff she liked to talk about - the woman with the smart-looking bob and a widow’s hourglass on tattooed onto her stomach, and the man, holding hands with the woman, with a mustache and beard and kind but dazed eyes and finally his gaze snapping back to Cheetor. 

Things went sourly, to say the least, and Cheetor had slurred a confused “Wuzzat?”, in regards to the goddamned spill, and Nightscream saw nothing but red. He had reared back, and sucker-punched Cheetor in the nose - he felt wetness on his fist and he had punched Cheetor  _ wrong _ . He had caught Cheetor’s sharp nose with his ring finger and pinky knuckles rather than his middle and index, and it had fucking  _ hurt.  _ Cheetor fell, and he heard a distinct  _ “What the fuck?”  _ before a glass was smashed over his head.

“Now  _ that fucking hurt,” _ Nighscream had thought. Cheetor looked up at Nightscream, confused, and touching his face, before being dragged out the house, all the while staring at Cheetor and Airazor swooping down upon him to pick him up. Cheetor looked so confused, and laughter had bubbled up out of Nightscream’s throat before he wasn’t laughing, and he was going to sob instead.

For the very first time, Nightscream was taller than Cheetor. And for the very first time, this was also the smallest he had ever felt in his life.

And then he was dragged out of the house. He froze. 

Police were lined up along the block, and he felt Scorponok freeze up behind him. Hell broke loose, to put it simply. 

His mom was going to  _ kill _ him. 

* * *

_ What a night this was going to be _ , Cheetor thought, before stumbling down to the ground, and just before Scorponok came stomping up behind Nightscream, smashing a  _ glass  _ over the side of his head. 

Glass sprayed on the ground before Cheetor, flecks of it probably catching in tufts of his blonde hair. Cheetor could only dazedly look down at the shards of shattered glass, vague shouts in the background from Nightscream being evicted and Airazor asking if Cheetor was  _ okay _ and Scorponok yelling at Nightscream to “ _ Get the fuck out of here,” _ — Cheetor couldn’t think.The girl that was next to him was shrieking, and Airazor looked like she was about to cry. He reached out to her or thought he could’ve, but Cheetor smelled blood, tasted it — and he gingerly touched just below his nose and pulled his hand to look at his fingers. Huh. Blood. 

_ That’s cool, I guess _ , Cheetor thought.  _ This is fine _ , he had told himself, but the party did not smell like sex and candy anymore, it smelled like blood and alcohol and fruit, and Cheetor had been punched so that he tasted it, tasted the sourness and metallicness that wasn’t quite his blood but at the same time was — it smelled and tasted a lot like heartbreak. But everything, Cheetor thought, was going to be fine.

Then it  _ wasn’t _ , because people were scrambling, and Airazor looked panicked. People came thundering from downstairs, and surely, Cheetor thought, this wasn’t all because of him. 

And then he definitely knew that it wasn’t because of him when someone had shouted  _ “POLICE —”  _ and that’s all Cheetor heard before a thousand images had flashed before his eyes. If he was caught, that was it. His scholarships, his lifeline, his ticket away from his dad, the disappointment from his Coach,  _ the disappointment _ — it’d be over. Cheetor needed to  _ go.  _ It’d land him a sentence longer than if he had just let himself be arrested, but there  _ was  _ the chance that he wouldn’t get caught. 

“Ya needa go, ‘Razor. We needta’ go,” he slurred to five images of Airazor all shouting at him to get up, and then he stumbled up. And then she wasn’t there. It was only after images of Airazor shouting, and she was at the backdoor entrance escaping, waving at him to follow her — 

A package was shoved in his hands, he looked at the person, there was police starting to enter the house — and it was the odd man with the coat who had shoved the package in his hands. 

“ _ Here _ , run, now,” He hissed. 

“B’okay, I’m gonna - I’m gonna run _so fast_ ” Cheetor said dumbly and stumbling towards the back entrance, before pausing. There was police there too. He ran up the stairs and heard footsteps thumping up behind him too. Other party-goers not wanting to get caught were thundering up behind him, with the police now actively in the house, arresting people. Cheetor felt blood running down his face, and his heart thumping in his veins and blood rushing in his ears — he felt lightheaded and exhilarated. 

He was greeted to a hallway, with which he ran down with haste to the hallway’s end, which had a window. He looked down to the first story, and there wasn’t so big of a fall, and there was a bush, and a privacy fence which, sober, he  _ would’ve _ been able to easily haul himself over. But drunk? Cheetor was not so sure. But now was not the time to be sure and unsure, now was the time to run. 

He heard footsteps thundering up the stairs, and he had a sneaking suspicion that these were not party-goers this time. Cheetor made the executive decision to hall his ass out the window. He didn't fall for long, hitting the bush and the air in his lungs being pushed out. He still held the package, which he wasn’t really sure why he was carrying, but he was going to anyway. Maybe he’d keep it as a souvenir. 

Cheetor scrambled as fast as he could when he saw a cop was rounding the corner, and he had sprinted to the privacy fence, package in hand, and threw the package over the fence. Hopefully, it wasn’t fragile in any capacity. Then he jumped and his feet planted against the fencing and he hauled himself up just as the cop was running to him. 

He heard a thump from the other side of the fence but wasted no time. He picked up the package and he was  _ running _ . He wanted to feel the sun come up on his own, and he didn’t want to feel the eyes crawling all over him if he ever got arrested. So he wouldn’t. Nobody has to know that he was there. He was going to run to chase his dreams. 

His feet thundered down on the pavement, and he imagined himself back on the tracker, his feet hitting the pavement there. He didn’t know where he was going, he felt lost, but he continued on regardless. The orange street lights caught Cheetor, and his shadows moved with him and then past him, multiplied by four and blurring back together, the package tucked safely under one arm. 

The sun wouldn’t rise for a long while, but Cheetor attempted to get to a place he knew was familiar, yet unfamiliar with the darkness shrouding around him. Blue-light special sounded out behind him, and he had looked back, banking around a corner just as a police car had turned, too. He cut through someone’s yard, dogs barking and lights turning on throughout the Block. He continued a pattern of throwing the package, and hopping fences in a desperate attempt in trying not to get caught until he got near the cheaper ends, the worst of ends of The Block, where privacy fence became chainlink, and it became easier to jump over. Then he was out of The Block, on the opposite end of where Nightscream, Airazor, and he had entered. 

He didn’t stop. His lungs felt like they were about to burst, and the cold had its claws in his lungs, tearing him apart, but he would not stop. His legs were cold but burned at the same time, but he still did not stop as he headed downtown, feet swimming up and down along the sidewalk, no stragglers, no cars, no alarms, and no surprises — just him, his hurting heart, and a package, and he ran — ran all the way to the corner of Hasson and Rust. 

Though the scene was familiar, and he knew that he could go to Rattrap’s door and knock, and try and get him to let him in his apartment to hide, he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to be rejected and turned away at the door. He didn’t think his heart could handle it. 

He knew this to be untrue, that Rattrap wouldn’t have — but his mind was racing. So he started to run past the corner of Hasson and Rust, and he ran as far as his long legs would take him. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinobot doesn't understand.

Dinobot knew what he had done would have gotten him killed — by Megatron personally, no doubt — but he had made sure that he was careful in being an informant to the police. It wasn’t so much that Dinobot was a narc — no, he wasn’t fond of the justice system in play as much as the next man. The police would only scrape the tip of the iceberg in arresting minors and adults alike. They targeted people who dress in threadbare pants and who lived in the Projects and trailer parks — only went after people who looked like they were poor enough, desperate enough to want an escape. It was narrowed down evermore by the races. They would have never thought to glance twice at rich, white boys who were willing to pay double the price of what weed should’ve been, or suburbian mothers and businessmen looking to dabble in speed and coke in order to fulfill the draining energy requirements of living in luxury, or what was close to it... Disgusting. The DEA was as incompetent as ever. The Maximal Police Department was equally so.   
Why inform the police then? Megatron was becoming unstable, he was an idiot. What type of drug lord would consider recruiting teenagers en masse the way he was? They were barely out of high school, most of them. Practically children, with emotional intelligence to match. That thorn in Dinobot’s side, Scorponok — was still in high school. Megatron thought it wise to bring him up higher in the echelons of what the Predacons did — organizing events and trades, and most importantly, recruitment. The police were sussing out more of their members, garnering warrants for their arrests and slamming cuffs on them, dragging them out of Projects and their mother’s homes with hands behind their backs — with mothers trailing behind them begging and crying, some screaming and throwing whatever was in their lawn at police cars and officers. Mothers would watch their baby boys get their heads slammed on the rim of the car when being pushed into seats — rare, openly tasteless police snickering, the ones with their priorities in order only scowling.   
“They are disposable, my dear,” Megatron had placidly said to him, infuritatingly cool from his cross-legged position on the leather couch, even after Dinobot had heaped his lid and started hurling things around the condo. “I thought you of all people would understand its wise to get rid of the pawns before a man’s knights and bishops and rooks.”   
Thinking of Megatron and his damnable confidence and pride had only made Dinobot’s blood boil even more. The implications of using children as soldiers — dishonorable. Besides, Dinobot wasn’t Megatron’s right-hand man only to be stuck babysitting, omitting to call Megatron dishonorable. He said as such to Megatron. He only threw his head back and laughed, his Adam’s apple bobbing and chest heaving with the motion. Dinobot could only stare.   
Stare at the tyrannosaurs rex tattoo sprawling over Megatron’s hairy chest and tacky triangle-print, open, silky, button-up. Stare at Megatron staring back at him with rare eyes filled with clarity and admiration and fondness and lust. Dinobot could feel the bastard grin wider as he looked away, as Megatron stood up to meet up with Dinobot across the trashed room, strong arms wrapping around him and a bearded face pushing into his neck and inhaling deeply. Dinobot huffed while Megatron only hummed, hands coming up to play with Dinobot’s dreads.   
“Come to bed, Dinobot. I’m sure I could make you feel better, darling,” Megatron crooned. Dinobot absolutely would not. 

He did.   
Their relationship was complicated, to say the least. He was gunning for Megatron’s position — he could do better. He would do better, he told himself. He would get that position of Megatron’s, and he would make the Predacons something better, to be feared and admired, something to stamp down damned Maximal Police —   
Megatron’s allure was his pride and confidence — he was hooked on ketamine for most of his deranged plans, filing down traitors and trying to recruit more by pilfering through records of the teenage demographic, and as for informants, lonely people. May, or may not be homeowners, no kids, no spouse. Vulnerable people, looking to kill the fact that they are untouched. Unspoken to, people lying on their sides at night staring at the wall. These people were disposable until they proved otherwise. These people were easy.   
And then the clubs — the parties — the distributions happened here. It’s where Dinobot had tipped off the police — at Scorponok’s house. A package was lost. But people were arrested, those among them including Scorponok and Waspinator. Tarantulas, the greasy bastard, made it out easy. Surely Blackarachnia and Silverbolt had also. Inferno, however, was still missing, but surely he would turn up. Scorponok and Waspinator were sure to turn up again, as is with Megatron’s influence. 

Dinobot huffed and looked at himself in the mirror. Dark eyes stared back, a dark complexion, strong and handsome in even the most shrewd of standards. Handsome like the night — His dreads immaculate and splayed with grace about him. Dinobot prided himself in how he looked. He was not Terrorsaur in vanity — but he needed to have a presence about him if he were to be respected. Sloppiness would not do. Especially if he was about to go on this... date with Megatron. It was two days since the bust. Megatron hadn’t made it known that he knew Dinobot had blown the whistle on the distribution. He was confident that he wouldn’t know, or at least not for a very long time. They still had made love, the last few days Megatron has been ravenous. In another lifetime, Dinobot wondered if they would have become something better. And far, far off — if they were to ever become husbands. Dinobot shook his head. Unlikely. Megatron was too geeked out most of the time now, to keep up. His lack of sleep — his eyes were blown wide constantly, the way he had treated people around him. Sure he treated Dinobot differently, but... that couldn’t have meant anything. It didn’t. Dinobot didn’t want it to. 

The restaurant was warm, cutlery cluttering and low chatter - soft music that was easy on the draw, and smooth. Warm lighting, and a strict dress code — unless, of course, you were Megatron. Ah, there he was splayed out in a Cheetah print silk shirt, with that ridiculous coat behind him, and a boy beside him —   
Dinobot stopped. That... was out of place. Dinobot observed the boy the best he could from afar. Blonde, tall, big eyes... Dinobot could tell that they were blue from where he was standing. He was tanned, tastefully so, and lanky. A slim face that still retained boyish features, he could not have been older than 20. Dinobot drew closer. Freckles. The boy was covered in them.


	6. Chapter 6

In order: Dinobot and Rattrap from Chapter 1 -   
Cheetor's costume design - Chapter 4 - 

Dinobot and Megatron's desgins. 

**Author's Note:**

> Cheetor is a lonely kid, actually, and Rattrap is like aw shit here we go.  
IDK How often I will update this but I got a lot of ideas and I am determined not to leave this orphaned. So like. I hope y'all get excited or whatever.


End file.
